Application servers such as the WebLogic server available from BEA Systems of San Jose, Calif. allow users to do a number of functions. One of the functions that can be allowed by the application servers is to provide access to a database. In one embodiment, the application servers provide Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) for connection to a database. JDBC technology is an API defined in J2EE that provides DBMS connectivity to a wide range of databases and access to other tabular data sources, such as spreadsheets or flat files. With a JDBC technology-enabled driver, a user can connect to corporate data even in a heterogeneous environment. JDBC defines data sources such as the relational databases and flat files using basic implementations, connection pooling implementations and distributed transaction implementation.